Sanchez (22-4 MMA, 11-4 UFC) has just experienced a significant turnaround in his six-year octagon career. Kampmann (17-4 MMA, 8-3 UFC), meanwhile, is coming off a significant loss in his half-decade with the UFC.

Although they come from opposite ends of the career spectrum, they share a desire to redeem themselves from past mistakes, and a meeting Thursday at UFC on Versus 3 is another step in that direction.

UFC on Versus 3 takes place at the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville, Ky., and Sanchez vs. Kampmann headlines the main card, which airs live on Versus. Two preliminary-card fights also stream on Facebook.

Kampmann’s need to correct the past is a little more immediate than his foe. He suffered a split-decision loss to Jake Shields this past October at UFC 121 in a fight billed as a No. 1 contender’s fight for the former Strikeforce champion. The stakes, though, were not necessarily there for Kampmann. In a back-and-forth battle, jiu-jitsu black belt Shields outgrappled Kampmann, whose striking skills seemed to be on hiatus that night.

“Training for the fight was pretty good, and I knew his game is to get people down and kind of lay on them,” Kampmann said. “So I was prepared for it. I just made some bad decisions in the fight.

“Sometimes in the heat of the moment, you make mistakes. I was a little bit too tentative in the standup. I was worried too much about the takedown, and when I was on top on the ground, I was trying too hard to submit him, and I gave up top position.”

Shields now is slated to take on welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre at UFC 129. Could that have been Kampmann? Maybe, and maybe not. But he doesn’t want to give away any more fights. That means he’s got to stay calm during Thursday’s fight and make no mistakes.

After dominating his early competition, Kampmann has stumbled in high-profile bouts against Nate Marquardt, Paul Daley and Shields while racking up critical wins over Thales Leites, Carlos Condit and Paulo Thiago.

He’s considered an underdog against Sanchez, but that doesn’t bother him. He’s on a mission to get back to the top.

“I don’t think the odds matter so much,” Kampmann said. “It’s still a fight. Diego seems like a very motivated person, and those guys are tough to fight. He always brings it, and I admire his tenacity in the cage. So I’m definitely expecting a tough fight, but that’s what I want.”

Sanchez, meanwhile, wants to continue his road to redemption. He most recently reversed a two-fight skid with a unanimous-decision win over Thiago this past October at UFC 121. Considering how close he came to the razor’s edge with back-to-back losses that began with a loss to then-lightweight champion B.J. Penn, his turnaround is all the more meaningful.

“I hit rock bottom after the B.J. Penn fight,” Sanchez said. “I really did. I blew through all my money. I made some very bad decisions. I had this scam artist scam me real bad. I was in debt (for) over $175,000. I had to come back home. I needed my family’s love. I just was humbled.”

The lessons didn’t end there. In his very next fight, Sanchez was outpointed by John Hathaway at UFC 114. He slid further down the rankings. He now knows he shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

“I was going to the bar and drinking beer after training,” Sanchez said. “I didn’t even take him seriously at all. I thought, ‘I’m going to go in there and knock this guy out. I’m taking him down.’ In the first round, I got hit with a knee in the face real hard, and I couldn’t recover from it. I shouldn’t have been in the ring for that fight, period.”

Sanchez moved back home five weeks before his fight against Thiago and rejoined Greg Jackson, with whom he’d trained for much of his career before moving to San Diego. He gave up partying, and he rededicated himself to God.

Along the way, he decided to give up the nickname that had defined him as a young competitor: “The Nightmare.” Now, he’s simply Diego Sanchez.

“‘The Nightmare’ is something that’s negative, and kind of evil, and I don’t want to represent that,” he said. “I want to represent positivity, and I want to represent good.

“I look back on my whole career. I’m like, ‘The Nightmare?’ ‘The Nightmare’ was myself. I was my own nightmare. All the times that I fell off track and got into drinking and smoking weed, the things that brought my down. That was my nightmare. I said, ‘You know what? I’ve grown up.’ I’ve let that name go, and I just want to be Diego Sanchez. I don’t even need a nickname.”

Now, his new motto is “earn it.”

“I want to go into every fight with a mindset that I already earned this ‘W,'” Sanchez said. “It’s mine, and I’m going to take it. It doesn’t matter what my opponent has done. I know that I’ve done everything possible in my ability to get the ‘W.'”

In other main-card action, former collegiate wrestling standouts Mark Munoz (9-2 MMA, 4-2 UFC) and C.B. Dollaway (11-2 MMA, 5-2 UFC) meet in a middleweight bout. After an initial rough spot, Dollaway has racked up three consecutive wins inside the octagon, including a victory over Joe Doerksen at UFC 119 that won him “Submission of the Night” honors. Munoz, meanwhile, is coming off a decision win over fellow collegiate wrestler Aaron Simpson that helped him rebound from a disappointing decision loss to Yushin Okami this past August.

Additionally, American Top Team’s Alessio Sakara (15-7 MMA, 6-4 UFC) returns to action after a stomach flu forced him to withdraw from a fight with Jorge Rivera at UFC 122 just hours before showtime. He meets middleweight newcomer Chris Weidman (4-0 MMA, 0-0 UFC), who steps in for an injured Rafael Natal. Weidman trains with former welterweight champion Matt Serra and trainer Ray Longo and has a fraction of the experience of his Italian opponent.

Also, former WEC bantamweight champion Brian Bowles (8-1 MMA, 0-0 UFC) makes his UFC debut after a string of injuries put him on the bench for a year. He meets Greg Jackson pupil Damacio Page (12-5 MMA, 0-0 UFC) in a rematch from an August 2008 bout at WEC 35, which Bowles won by first-round submission.

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